


Trust Fall

by devilinthedetails



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Bonding, Gen, Team-Building Exercise, Trust, mentoring, trust fall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 13:57:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20893220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Two generations of Masters and Padawans. Two generations of trust falls.





	Trust Fall

Trust Fall 

Trust in the Living Force

“You fall back whenever you’re ready,” Qui-Gon instructed calmly. He could be calm, Obi-Wan thought, since he wasn’t the one who would have to fall back and trust someone else to catch him before he crashed to the floor. That task would fall—pun intended—to Obi-Wan. He knew that trust fall exercises were common with new Master and Padawan pairs. Most Padawans probably even enjoyed them, but then most Padawans weren’t as naturally inclined to skepticism as him and didn’t have to be the cautious ones in their relationship with their unconventional Masters…

Obi-Wan knew he must have been standing too long when Qui-Gon prompted patiently, “Whenever you’re ready, Padawan. I’ll be here to catch you.” 

Obi-Wan studied the floor of the training dojo. It was covered in padded mats that would cushion his landing should Qui-Gon fail to catch him. Crashing to the floor wouldn’t hurt that much, he told himself. Not enough to break anything anyway. Just enough to leave some purple bruises the next day. 

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes, thinking it would be easier to force himself to fall if he couldn’t see what he was doing. He pushed his weight back on his heels, unbalancing himself. He wobbled backward, felt an instinctual panic, and thrust back a leg to catch himself before Qui-Gon. 

Qui-Gon, arms still upraised as if to catch Obi-Wan, observed with a twinkle in his eyes, “The point of this exercise is for me to catch you, not for you to catch yourself.” 

“I know,” Obi-Wan muttered, straightening for a second effort. “That’s what makes it difficult.” 

“Trust in the Force.” Qui-Gon didn’t touch Obi-Wan’s shoulder, but Obi-Wan could still feel his Master’s solid, dependable presence behind him. “Trust in me.” 

Obi-Wan obeyed, shutting his eyes again and wrapping the Force around himself like a cloak for courage and comfort. The Force was in him and would be with him, strengthening and protecting him. Drawing on the Force to keep him safe, he fell back and felt the power that governed gravity push him back upright before Qui-Gon could catch him. 

“I did trust in the Force, Master.” Obi-Wan couldn’t resist giving Qui-Gon an indignant glance. “It didn’t work.” 

“You didn’t trust in the Force. You drew on the Force,” Qui-Gon corrected mildly. “You drew on the Force to protect you. You didn’t trust in the Living Force that binds us together. That’s why it didn’t work.” 

Obi-Wan might only have been Qui-Gon’s Padawan for a few weeks, but that was long enough to learn that trusting in the Living Force was a mantra for Qui-Gon. 

Once again closing his eyes, he tried to open himself to the Living Force that bound him to Qui-Gon and to all other life forms in the galaxy. He felt Qui-Gon behind him: patient, gentle, strong enough to catch him, and with sharp instincts trained from years of battle prepared to gather Obi-Wan in his arms before Obi-Wan crashed to the padded floor. He could trust Qui-Gon, he realized. Qui-Gon wouldn’t let him fall. 

He let the breath flow from his lungs in a soothing stream before he fell back, trusting Qui-Gon to catch him. He should have felt nervous as he sank backward, but he somehow felt liberated from any fears about what would happen to his body as he fell toward the floor. He had just enough time to understand why the term free-falling existed—because falling could sometimes be truly freeing to the spirit—before Qui-Gon caught him firmly beneath the armpits, steadying him on his feet again. 

“You trusted in the Living Force and in me.” Qui-Gon gave Obi-Wan’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze. “Well done.” 

“Nice catch, Master.” The adrenaline surging through Obi-Wan’s veins found release in a wry remark. “It would’ve been awkward if I fell.” 

“Very awkward,” agreed Qui-Gon, smiling slightly, and Obi-Wan felt the beginnings of a rock foundation build between them with that expression as much as with any trust fall. 

Caught by Surprise

“I won’t let you fall.” Obi-Wan’s voice sounded a million lightyears away though he stood barely a meter behind Anakin’s ear. He had explained about trust falls, another weird Jedi practice that Anakin would apparently have to come to regard as normal in this new life he was creating for himself. “I’ll be there to catch you.” 

Obi-Wan’s words seemed to echo oddly against the brightly colored mats padding the floor of the training dojo. In Anakin’s experience, people—even those he trusted—couldn’t be relied upon to be there when they promised to be. His mother had promised to take care of him forever, but she had sent him away with tears in his eyes to train as a Jedi with Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon had promised to look after Anakin and to train him, leaving Obi-Wan to train Anakin. Obi-Wan who had seemed to dislike and distrust Anakin from the moment they had met aboard the Naboo royal cruiser. How could he trust someone who had never trusted him? It defied all logic and instinct learned in nine years of slavery. 

As if he could sense some of Anakin’s thoughts through the fragile Force bond they shared, Obi-Wan spoke again. “I promise I won’t let you fall, Anakin.” 

His voice was the same somber, soft one it had been at Qui-Gon’s funeral when he had promised as they both watched Qui-Gon’s body burn that Anakin would become a Jedi. Somehow that memory cut through Anakin’s doubts, giving him the faith to fall backward. 

He felt the wild exhilaration he felt in an out-of-control podracer right before it crashed in flames on a sandy track as he plunged toward the cushioned dojo floor. Then he felt his fall broken not by mats but by arms linking beneath his armpits, lifting him to his feet once more. 

“You caught me.” Anakin, eyes wide as the lakes of Naboo, found that the arms that had caught him had somehow managed to catch him by surprise despite Obi-Wan’s promises. He had, he realized, been preparing himself for a fall, bracing himself for an impact against the floor no matter what Obi-Wan had said. 

“Does it shock you so much that I’d keep my word to you?” Obi-Wan arched an eyebrow. 

“Not really.” Anakin stared down at the floor mats because they were easier to look at than his Master’s keen gaze. After all, Obi-Wan was always so serious that it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that he would be as serious about keeping his promises as he was about everything else. If there was a rule about anything, Obi-Wan could be trusted to follow it. 

“Trust is the building block of every Master and Padawan relationship.” Obi-Wan tilted Anakin’s chin up so their eyes met. “If I make you a promise I will do everything in my power to keep it.” 

“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.” Anakin bit his lip, wondering if he had offended his Master by his lack of faith. 

“You did fine.” Obi-Wan’s face cracked into a crooked grin. Eyes alight with the mix of fondness and grief that seemed to fill them whenever he mentioned Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan added, “It took me far longer to trust my Master the first time we attempted such an exercise.” 

“Why?” Anakin cocked his head, forehead furrowing as he discovered that once again he couldn’t quite fathom his Master. 

“Because I’m a cynic slow to trust anyone.” Obi-Wan’s dry answer seemed to explain why he had been so mistrustful of Anakin when they first met and why he had been so bitter when Qui-Gon had declared before the Council that he would take Anakin as his Padawan since Obi-Wan was ready for the Trials. 

Obi-Wan, he understood, was what his mother would have called a closed person: a person who guarded their trust to avoid being vulnerable and could easily be hurt if their trust was betrayed. His mother, he remembered, had always been the opposite: open to others no matter how much pain it could cause her. On Tatooine, he had taken after her, eager to share his emotions and what few possessions he had with others, but now that he had lost his mother and Qui-Gon, he was starting to close up like a Corellian Clam, a delicacy he had never eaten before setting foot in the Jedi Temple. Perhaps that would make Obi-Wan proud. Maybe that was what it meant to cultivate true Jedi reserve.


End file.
